This book represents the crowning glory of a new turn in Reformation historiography. Rather than the customary focus upon the origins, speed, direction and popularity of England's sixteenth-century Reformations, Walsham illuminates their impact upon the landscape with unparalleled breadth, variety and sophistication. The differing experiences of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales are each granted plentiful attention, and exciting new approaches are outlined towards uncovering the religious identities of our early modern forbears. The book considers the relationship between religion and the pre-Reformation landscape, suggesting that a close study of sacred sites signifies the vulnerability of late medieval Catholicism. It then traces the impact of iconoclasm, dissolution, counter-reformation, and the outdoor worship engendered by recusancy and nonconformity. Catastrophic events, natural wonders, medicine, custom and memory jostle for analysis as differing attitudes to the landscape are connected to developing confessional identities. The changing functions of holy wells and spas are discussed, as well as the gradual shift in the motivation for pilgrimage from penitence to pleasure.

Although Walsham acknowledges that Protestant Reformers eventually imposed a gradual desacralisation upon the landscape, she stresses the complexity, caveats and limitations that qualified this wider process. The Reformation was not inflicted upon the landscape; rather religious change shaped and interacted with the physical environment in a bewildering variety of ways. For a long time Protestant clergy considered that divine providence and God's purposes might be read from the physical world around them. Customary practices considered harmless or benign were allowed to evolve, shorn of their associations to saints or relics. Protestantism fashioned its own landscape legends that contested their pre-existing or developing Roman Catholic counterparts. Walsham outlines how Protestant antiquarians became torn between a nostalgic drive to record sites and customs for posterity, and their fear that by doing so they might rekindle superstitious and corrupting practices.

The detail, evidence and example in this work is breathtaking, but it makes for a dauntingly long read. There is considerable repetition of the arguments, which in places might have been delivered more briefly, clearly and concisely. But these minor shortcomings are of little consequence compared to the wave of new research a book like this might unleash. Walsham invites future micro-histories of particular places to engage with her themes, to thereby test and supplement the book's findings. By inviting Reformation scholars to pay closer attention to issues of place and space, Walsham calls for the closer integration of religious history with landscape studies. This weighty tome serves as an outstanding reminder that historical events should not be divorced from the local landscapes and communities that shaped them.